He was named the National Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association in 1977, and inducted into their Hall of Fame in 1994. That year, he also received the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame in 1999. The "Pat Summerall Award" has been presented since 2006 during Super Bowl weekend at the NFL's headquarters hotel "to a deserving recipient who through their career has demonstrated the character, integrity and leadership both on and off the job that the name Pat Summerall represents."

Professional

Summerall on a 1955 Bowman football card

Summerall spent ten years as a professional football player in the National Football League, primarily as a placekicker. The Detroit Lions drafted Summerall as a fourth-round draft choice in the 1952 NFL Draft.[5] Summerall played the pre-season with the Lions before breaking his arm, which ended the year for him.[6] After that season, he was traded and went on to play for the Chicago Cardinals from 1953 to 1957 and the New York Giants from 1958 to 1961, during which he was a part of The Greatest Game Ever Played. His best professional year statistically was 1959, when Summerall scored 90 points on 30-for-30 (100%) extra-point kicking and 20-for-29 (69%) field goal kicking.

Summerall's most memorable professional moment may well have been at the very end of the December 14, 1958 regular season finale between his Giants and the Cleveland Browns at Yankee Stadium. Going into the game, the Browns were in first place in the Eastern Conference, holding a one-game lead over the second-place Giants. In that era, there was no overtime during regular season games, standings ties were broken by a playoff, and there were no wild-card teams. This meant that only the Eastern Conference champion would qualify for the NFL Championship Game to be held two weeks later, and it meant that the Giants had to win just to force a tiebreaker playoff game. The Browns, on the other hand, needed only a tie to clinch the Eastern championship. As time was running out, the Giants and Browns were tied, 10–10, a situation that, as indicated, favored the Browns. The Giants got barely into Cleveland territory, then sent out Summerall to try for a tiebreaking 49-yard field goal. To add to the drama, there were swirling winds and snow. Summerall, a straight-ahead kicker, made the field goal with just two minutes to play, keeping the Giants alive for another week (they defeated Cleveland a week later, 10–0, in the Eastern Conference tiebreaker playoff before losing the sudden-death playoff to Baltimore the week after that).

The Giants' offensive coach, Vince Lombardi, was against sending Summerall in[7] (Summerall missed a 31-yard attempt a few minutes earlier), then gleefully greeted Summerall as he came off the field, “You son of a bitch, you can’t kick it that far!”[8][9]Sports Illustrated ran the story as one of its primary articles the next week, with a leading photograph showing the football heading between the uprights through the snow.[10] His last professional game was the December 31, 1961 NFL Championship Game held at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Lombardi's Green Bay Packers defeated Summerall's Giants, 37–0, holding New York to just six first downs. Summerall was not a factor in that game.

The urban legend was his nickname became "Pat" because of the abbreviation for "point after touchdown" that a field-goal kicker was credited for in a game summary. But in a 1997 Dallas Morning News story, Summerall said after his parents divorced, he was taken in by an aunt and uncle who had a son named Mike. "My aunt and uncle just started calling me Pat to go with their Mike", Summerall would say, referencing frequently named characters in Irish jokes told during that time.[11]

Broadcasting career

In the early 1960s, Summerall was the morning host on WINS (AM) radio in New York City. He left the job when WINS went all-news in 1965. He also co-hosted the syndicatedNFL Films series This Week in Pro Football in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Summerall was also associated with a production company in Dallas from about 1998 through 2005 which was called Pat Summerall Productions. He was featured in and hosted various production shows, such as Summerall Success Stories and Champions of Industry. These qualified production segments would air on the Fox News Channel and later, CNN Headline News. During the mid-1990s, Summerall hosted the "Summerall-Aikman" Cowboys report with quarterback Troy Aikman. Summerall served as the host of Sports Stars of Tomorrow and Future Phenoms, two nationally syndicated high school sports shows based out of Fort Worth, Texas.

CBS Sports

NFL

After retiring from football, Summerall was hired by George Ratterman. Summerall and Ratterman were forced to share a single microphone.

In 1969, Summerall took part in NBC's coverage of Super Bowl III. NBC used Summerall to provide an "NFL perspective" on the coverage. This was due in part to the fact that NBC was at the time, the network television provider of the American Football League (whereas CBS was the network television provider for the pre-mergerNational Football League). In return, for CBS Radio's coverage of Super Bowls I, II and IV, they used Tom Hedrick, normally the radio voice of the Kansas City Chiefs, to provide an "AFL perspective" for their coverage.

Midway through the 1974 NFL season, CBS shifted Summerall from color to play-by-play. The network's #1 NFL crew now consisted of Summerall and analyst Tom Brookshier[12] (with whom he had previously worked on This Week in Pro Football), and the colorful Summerall-Brookshier duo worked three Super Bowls (X, XII, and XIV) together. Summerall, Brookshier, NFL on CBS producer Bob Wussler, and Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie appeared as themselves during the 1977 film Black Sunday, which was filmed on location at the Orange Bowl in Miami during Super Bowl X.

In 1981, Summerall was teamed with former Oakland Raiders coach John Madden, a pairing that would last for 22 seasons on two networks and become one of the most well-known partnerships in TV sportscasting history. Summerall and Madden were first teamed on a November 25, 1979 broadcast of a Minnesota Vikings–Tampa Bay Buccaneers game.[13] While the two were paired on CBS, they called Super Bowls XVI, XVIII, XXI, XXIV, and XXVI together. It is often mistakenly assumed that Summerall and Madden handled the call on CBS-TV for the 1981 NFC Championship Game, when San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Dwight Clark made "The Catch" to lift the 49ers to a 28–27 victory over the Dallas Cowboys and a berth in Super Bowl XVI. Instead, CBS' #2 broadcast team of Vin Scully and Hank Stram handled the broadcast while Madden was given the weekend off to travel to Pontiac, Michigan for the game and to prepare for the broadcast. Since Stram was Jack Buck's color commentator on CBS Radio, Summerall substituted for Stram as Buck's partner; this was the first time Buck and Summerall had called a game together since 1974, when then-lead color commentator Summerall was moved off of Buck's team to become CBS television's lead play-by-play voice for the NFL.

Summerall's stature as pro football's premier television broadcaster was a result of two things: first, his ability to play the "straight man" alongside John Madden's lively, verbose persona; second, his economical delivery that magnified the drama of a moment while allowing the pictures and his baritone-like voice to tell the story. His style was closely modeled on that of his predecessor as CBS' main NFL announcer, Ray Scott, also known for his minimalist style. One of Summerall's most memorable on-air calls was his account of Marcus Allen's electrifying touchdown run in Super Bowl XVIII. The transcript is surprisingly sparse: "Touchdown, 75 yards!" That the quote is memorable is testament to the weight of Summerall's voice when he was at the height of his powers as an NFL broadcaster. This was a hallmark of his broadcasting career as simple calls like "Montana......Rice.... Touchdown!" (describing a Joe Montana to Jerry Rice touchdown pass) to describe a big play were frequently used.

His last game alongside Madden for CBS (before the Atlanta) in Irving, Texas.

Other CBS Sports assignments

Summerall also covered other events such as ABA[14] for CBS during this period. Through 1966, he hosted a morning drive-time music/talk program for WCBS-AM radio in New York.

Summerall broadcast his first Masters in 1968, when he anchored the coverage at hole 18. In 1983, Summerall replaced Vin Scully (who had left CBS to work for NBC on their Major League Baseball and golf coverage) in the 18th hole tower role (a role that Scully was in since 1975). Summerall's broadcast partner during this period was Ken Venturi. Summerall's last on-air assignment for CBS Sports was the 1994 Masters Tournament. Summerall signed off the broadcast thus, surrounded by the other CBS commentators that were working the tournament:

In 1970, Summerall and then-Boston Bruins' TV announcer Don Earle did a short postgame segment from inside the team's dressing room at the end of CBS' coverage of the fourth (and what turned out to be the final) game of the 1970 Stanley Cup Finals. WSBK-38, the Bruins' TV flagship at the time, simulcast the CBS coverage and did a longer post-game locker-room segment after CBS' coverage ended. After Bobby Orr scored the championship-winning goal after just 40 seconds, so the story went, Summerall turned to Bobby's father, Doug Orr (who was reportedly, too nervous to go back to his seat from the Bruins' dressing room for the start of overtime) and yelled over the crowd in the stands above "Mr. Orr, your son has scored and Boston has won the Stanley Cup!" Doug Orr is said to have told Summerall "I know Boston scored, but we didn't see it! What makes you think my son scored?" Summerall supposedly replied "Because they wouldn't be yelling this loudly if (Phil) Esposito (another high-scoring Boston player of the era) had scored!"

On April 15, 1987, Summerall did color commentary alongside Steve Stone[17] for a Chicago Cubs-Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game on WGN-TV. This was during time period in which the Cubs' normal television announcer, Harry Caray, was recovering from a stroke. Thus, for about the first two months of the 1987 season, WGN featured a series of celebrity guest announcers on game telecasts while Caray recuperated.[18] He broadcast the US Open Tennis Tournament with Tony Trabert for 25 years.

Fox Sports

In 1994, the Fox network surprised NFL fans by outbidding CBS for the NFC broadcast package. One of the network's first moves was to hire Summerall and Madden as its lead announcing team. While at Fox the pair called Super Bowls XXXI, XXXIII, and XXXVI together. The long-time partnership ended after Super Bowl XXXVI in early 2002, as Summerall had announced he would be retiring from announcing and Madden's contract had expired. Summerall was lured out of retirement and re-signed with Fox for the 2002 season. However, since Madden had left to take over the color commentator position on Monday Night Football from Dan Fouts and Dennis Miller for ABC and Fox had promoted Joe Buck to be its number one NFL play-by-play voice (Troy Aikman and, until 2004, Cris Collinsworth replaced Madden as Fox's lead NFL color commentators), Summerall was paired with Brian Baldinger on regional telecasts. Most of the games Summerall covered featured the Dallas Cowboys, due in part to his residency in the city. One of the games Summerall called was the Cowboys' game against the Seattle Seahawks at Texas Stadium, in which Emmitt Smith broke Walter Payton's career rushing yardage record. Summerall and Baldinger were joined by Daryl Johnston, who at the time was working as Fox's #2 color man with Dick Stockton and who was a longtime teammate of Smith's with the Cowboys, for this game.

Post-Fox

In the 2000s, Summerall provided voiceover sponsorship credits for the CBS Masters golf telecasts, and voice-overs for game coverage on NFL Network. He has also provided game commentary for the Golden Tee Golf video game series.

NFL on ESPN

Summerall called several preseason and early regular-season NFL games for the ESPN network in 2004, substituting for regular announcer Mike Patrick while the latter recovered from heart surgery.

Sports Stars of Tomorrow

As previously mentioned, Summerall hosted this syndicated program dedicated to high school and collegiate athletics from 2005 to 2012. Charles Davis assumed hosting duties in 2012.

Since 2006, the "Pat Summerall Award" has been presented at the annual Legends for Charity Luncheon given on Super Bowl weekend at the NFL's headquarters hotel in the host city. The award is given "to a deserving recipient who through their career has demonstrated the character, integrity and leadership both on and off the job that the name Pat Summerall represents." Recipients have included James Brown (2006), Greg Gumbel (2007), Jim Nantz (2008), Chris Berman (2009), Cris Collinsworth (2010), and the entire Fox NFL crew (2011).[21]

In the spring of 2004, Summerall, a recovering transplant.[1] Summerall at one point preached a sermon at Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Ft. Worth, Texas. He also was a featured speaker at the Men's Gridiron Conference in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in which he related his giving his life to Christ during his stay at the Betty Ford Clinic during his recovery from alcoholism.

In 2006, Pat Summerall underwent cataract surgery, and had an intraocular lens implanted.[22]

In January 2008, Summerall had a hip replacement surgery. On June 19, 2008, he was hospitalized for internal bleeding caused by a new medicine he was taking.[23]

Death

Summerall checked into Zale Lipshy University Hospital in Dallas, Texas, for surgery on a broken hip.[1] He died there on April 16, 2013, of cardiac arrest at age 82.[24] After his death, Jerry Jones referred to Summerall as "royalty in the broadcast booth" while Madden called him "a great broadcaster and a great man" and added that "Pat Summerall is the voice of football and always will be."[25] Fellow broadcasters Jim Nantz and Verne Lundquist also made statements on Summerall's life.[1]

A few days later, CBS Sports presented a tribute to Summerall during their coverage of the RBC Heritage golf event. Nantz and Gary McCord presented highlights of his life and career - both as a player and at CBS - ending with his 1994 Masters sign-off.[26]

Outside of sports broadcasting

For many years Summerall was a commercial spokesperson for True Value, often ending advertisements with his tag line "and tell 'em Pat Summerall sent you".[27] Ironically, his long-time broadcast partner Madden was the spokesperson for Ace Hardware, True Value's main competitor in the independent hardware store market. Summerall has served as the longtime radio spokesman for the Dux Beds company, a Swedish maker of mattresses, and its "Duxiana" stores.

Summerall started doing work as a commentator for the Madden NFL video game franchise in the game John Madden Football '92. His voice was subsequently featured in all the games in the Madden franchise from 1994-2002.[28]

Summerall was name-checked on The Simpsons in the episode "Springfield Up", where his caricature and name appear on the cover of a book held by Homer Simpson titled "Smut Yuks." Summerall and his partner John Madden also appeared in (and lent their voices to) the Simpsons episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday", which premiered following the duo's broadcast of Super Bowl XXXIII on Fox in 1999, and on the same night Summerall appeared on the Family Guy premiere episode "Death Has a Shadow". The pair was also featured in the movie The Replacements, calling the games of the Washington Sentinels on their run to the playoffs. Summerall is referenced in the season 4 Gilmore Girls episode, "The Lorelais' First Day at Yale."

Encyclopedia Article

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